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C H R Y S E I D 

AND OTHER POEMS 



C38S 



WILL McCOURTIE 




tOSARTI et VeRITAriffl 

BOSTON 
Richard G. Baidgef 

1904 



Copyright, 1903, by Will McCourtie 
All Rights Reserved. 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 

Two Copies Received 

APR 19 1904 

Copyrljrht Entry 

CLASS Oi. XXo. Na 

COPY B 



76 3^3 r 
. A17 Cr 



Printed at 

The G or ham Press 

Bos ton ^ U.S.A. 



% 



To My Mother — My Book 



CHRYSEID 

An Imploratzon whispered to Lovers ear. 

" — The moon shines bright : — In such a night 

as this, 
"When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees, 
'' And they did make no noise, — ^^in such a night 
'' Troilus, methinks, mounted the Trojan walls 
'' And sigh'd his soul toward the Grecian tents, 
'^ Where Cressid lay that night/' 

— The Merchant of Venice. 



CONTENTS 




Chryseid and Other Poems. 




Chryseid .... 


9 


Julian .... 


12 


Lotis .... 


16 


Carlotta . . . . , 


18 


Isabella .... 


18 


Love the Highwayman 


19 


Dreams .... 


20 


Foundation 


21 


Sonnets. 




Sargent Hall 


25 


Springfield 


26 


Westport 


, 27 


Lake Champlain 


28 


Midsummer-Night's Dream 


29 


The Book of Living Love 


30 


Your Voice . . . . 


31 


Parallels. 




Parallels .... 


35 


On a Fine Day 


36 


On That Day . 


37 


Triolets 


38 


In the Dimness 


39 


Sweetheart 


39 


While Love Is Here 


40 


Serenade . 


41 


Song . • . . 


42 


A Toast .... 


42 


The Lake 


43 


Song of the Lake 


44 


Moonlight 


45 


Longing 


46 



Melancholy 47 

Separation ..... 48 

Love's Yesterday .... 49 

Renderings. 

Jules Laforgue : The Provencal Moon 53 

Sappho : Cruelty for Kindness . . 55 

Jovius Secundus : Kisses . . , 56 

Catullus: Crux Amoris . . . 57 

Meleager : To a Song-Maiden . . 58 

Meleager : The Garland of Roses . 59 

Folk-made : A Gascon Vocero . . 60 

Stephane Mallarme : Sigh . , 61 



CHRYSEID 

Chryseid, lean within the night and hear 
This surging dream that strives for secrecy 
And utterance unto thy midmost ear — 
This dream, it may be, that I tell to thee. 
Thou knowest I am wont to sit and brood 
Upon our love : by night, when all is sleepy 
I watch in solemn silent solitude. 
And cast myself far out in ether's deep ; 
Where, winged, I soar aloft or poise or sink 
Amid clouds of slumbering thoughts until I seem 
To be upon the overlooking brink 
Of other worlds — and this world is a dream ; 
While untold whisperings prophetic come, 
And breathe of thee a star-lit symphony. 
Thrill and still thrill me almost stricken dumb ; 
And inner voices chant and sing to me. 

Erewhiles upon the gasping Earth was thrown 
The shadow-fallen darkness of the night, 
A sad nocturnal mantle weirdly blown 
By wafting waning zephyrs, drifting light 
In drooping folds o'er open garden-places. 
In heavy sable raiment on the trees ; 
And silently the moon floods silent spaces 
With dreamy baths of unreal ecstasies. 



The few bright stars Were glittering bells in 

chime, 
Just thinly tinkling in the heavenly zone 
As murmurs of the wind from time to time 
Stirred their pale polished cups to silvery tone : 
The Earth, bewitched by music's light embrace, 
Borne in its haunting influence along, 
Had swooned in fancy of the thrilling grace 
Of ghostly numbers breathed in stellar song : 
And candent moonlight, sleeping fair and pure, 
Wooed mortals to old blissful dreams anew, 
Which fascinate with secret charming lure 
And pierce the soul with yearning through and 

through. . . . 
A beam had fallen on the forest brook. 
Near by I stood and calmly leaning o'er 
Into its quiet depths I threw a look — 
The water shone like a smooth and polished floor 
Of burnished glass : it was a mirror fair 
And shining cold, in which I saw a face 
Not thine nor wholly mine ; thy falling hair 
Had over-webbed my face, a wreath of grace, 
And blurred the picture like a golden cloud, 
Or veil of silken filmy golden lace. 
Which, floating on the limpid deeps, endowed 
My lineaments with mystery and grace. 



10 



Chryseid ! lyre-like was the mirror strung, 
Strung with thy hair, and thrilled with sweetest 

note ; 
While to the vibrant tones a strange voice sung, — 
As though perfume-sweet breath from an un- 
known throat 
Swept over me with love ineffable ; 
When lo ! the waters of the stream became 
Divinely lit, and thou wert visible 
In silvered heraldry and palish flame ! 
Chryseid, thou ! sweet spirit of soft grace ! — 

Beauty speechless, wonderful, divine ! — 
Deigning to breathe upon my upheld face 

The kiss of love which made thy sweetness mine. 
And in my face, so softened in its lines, 
Still peers the star-lit grace of that strange night, 
As more for thee my soul in longing pines 
As opes each day, as hastes its sunny flight, 
As, with the earliest dream that love doth spin, 
When slumber hushes me to perfect rest. 
Summoned by this ecstasy my soul breathes in, 

1 fly, and am enfolded to thy breast. 
Chryseid, sweet ! thou art my only queen. 
Thou art the blossom on the tree of Night 
Hung silverly the topmost boughs between. . . . 
O Love ! . . . O whitest bloom ! . . . O silver 

light ! . . . 



11 



JULIAN 

Rushes the wind in the forest like sounds of the 

night on the seas, 
Immense — like great wings in the profluent swish 

of their moving 
Over the terrible heights and the veteran tops of 

the trees 
Driving black masses of cloud that are sullen and 

dragged disapproving; 
Hoarse is its voice with anguish, majestic the 

chant of its pain — 
A reverberate sorrowing roll from the first day's 

beginning — 
For these are the wrongs of old worlds and the 

songs of them slain, 
Sad-sudden as rain when the day dies to doom, 

and dies sinning : 
From out the black depths not whisper not mur- 
mur but thunder 
The prophetic grey-glooms of the pines toward 

the ages to be. 
Somber as stricken mid-moon when night's 

solemn-breathed swell cuts asunder 
The soul from itself, and no shore's last light 

lingers a-sea : 
This menace sweeps on me as rain, as showering 

rain, 



12 



Suffusing and drooping its mists to my inner- 
most being ; 
And it threatens and blinds, pursuing as pity or 

pain, 
Till my hurt heart is pierced through the shutter- 
less eyes of its seeing. 
Though sleep hath its dreams this my fire dies 

not to a smoulder, 
New fuel-fed flame bursts out where the old flame 

fell; 
From the sleep I arise, from the dream I arise, 

arise older, 
But the taste of my life is embittered wherever I 

dwell. 
For shall life not soon pass and passing lay on 

some altar 
Its gift as shall we lay our gift and hence shall 

depart ? 
Feeble our steps what time hands break apart ; no 

doubt we shall falter. 
Though love is loved, life is lived, still a heart 

leaves a heart : 
A heart leaves a heart — O heart of my heart, is 

that all ? 
What of these unwetted eyes and the passionate 

promise to guard her? 
What we wished, is all done? What is done, 

will it live, will it fall? 



13 



O to leave you is hard, but to be left of you, — 

ah ! that is harder. . . . 
These are but shadows, I know, the foreshadowing 

sobs of a shaken 
Suspense-wearied pagan, whose night has no 

moon woven through ; 
If I sleep, I would that from sleep I never should 

waken, 
Night is the only friend I have — night brings me 

you. 
That old move, and the gesture of arm for a laugh- 
ing embrace — 
Only the never-known love and the looks without 

naming or number. 
They have filled me, and flare in the dusk as I 

fall to your face. 
Swift as an impulse falls, praying sleep and 

some dreams in the slumber. 
The waters grown pallid of night stretch out 

pulseless and deadened. 
The tide-swung thin tendrils unclasp as they sink 

under brine, — 
When lo ! out of East — is that motion ? What of 

sky there is reddened ; 
The waves lean and listen. But if dawn shoots 

a light, it's not mine : 
You and I strain our gaze on the darkness where 

old things have passed. 



14 



Whence our life that was love has gone, our eyes 

are turned thither ; 
It grows black I of its gods and its glories we are 

the last 
To know or to care : we, too, must pass on — but, 

death, whither? 
It is not much to have lived, it is more — O so 

much ! — to be living, 
These mornings and sunsets mean more than their 

promise a-sky : 
Lo, it is dead, what is given; it is life that we 

love we are giving. 
Life that we love, that we give up to love, that it 

live — you and I. 



15 



LOTIS 

O Lotis, would that I might sing thy bloom 

In vocables soft-footed as a rill, 
Such as the dryads in deep evening gloom 

In heart-throbs hymn, each syllable a thrill, 
Whenas they gather round a favourite stone, 

And some blow on the reed, some dance, some 
sing, 
With locks a-wild which warm susurri comb : 
But melancholy now since thou art flown 

This burden moans and saddens on the wing, 
And droops anigh thy home, thy forest home. 

The spokesman of thy beauty was the grace, 

The bud-enfolded flower of natural ease. 
Flaring thy limbs to murmur in thy face 

When wildered by the chase and old love's pleas 
Pressed hard, and charmed thee from thy woods 
apart ; 
Thy dreams, then, all desire and quick delight, 
Shrinking but giving, and lo ! an empty shrine ! 
Till, with intolerably weary heart. 

Thou prayed a pardon from thy human plight, 
Asked of the god oblivion, and it was thine. 



16 



O for the peace about thy garden .... on 

The trees .... the quaint repose and quietness 
Of ever-falling flowers . . . the yellowed sun 

That broods upon thy ghosthood, lustreless .... 
To dream the way of one a-worshipping 

When lonesome star-shine swathes the silent 
steep, 
And live no more a lived life's wandering 

Like some night-nomad from the tribe of sleep ! 
O for thy vast enchanted garden-place — 
The shadow, as thy dayless sun is old, 

That folds each branch and yearns upon the 
ground, 
To live in hope and worship of thy face 
Until thou touch me with a wand of gold 

And smooth me soft away to peace profound. 



17 






CARLOTTA 

She stands in her grief alone. ... 
While a sadness, still, unknown. 
Tears, tears at her heart, a throne 
As empty as her own. . . . 
Alone in her grief, alone. 

She weathers her grief alone, 
And her queenly strength is gone, 
And the blithe heart once her own 
Has heavy grown as stone. . . . 
Alone in her grief, alone. 

ISABELLA 

O Keats, thou must have known sweet Isabel 

As, fading shadow-fast, her tearful eyes 
Bled life to bay-roots creeping through the cell. 
The bone-house where Lorenzo once did dwell. 

Let doleful Melancholy throw a spell, 

And chant a dirge, O woful, wofully ; 
Sad — sadly toll a mournful mournful bell 
For slim Lorenzo, loving Isabel. 



18 



LOVE THE HIGHWAYMAN 

When Fancy spinneth and when Love doth weave 

O 'tis more than itching raiment ! worn withal 

To the sure tune of many Nessus-aches 

And ills, though all are cured and sweetened by 

The unf orgetable knowledge of possession. 

Love's fools, both old and young ! is it not queer 

And laughably droll, your lack of modesty? 

But 'tis a rare good relish Love imparts ! 

Methinks the gods themselves must smile to mark 

The lover's conscious pose of open pride, 

The sudden happy grandeur of his carriage : 

Till yesterday a youthful pilferer, 

During to-morrow prisoned by his duty. 

But this to-day — as free as aimless air. 

And prouder than the topmost emperor — 

The foremost boldest robber of them all. 

Ay, robbery, — unpunished robbery — for 

There is no more successful brigandage 

Than this same theft called Love, nor commoner ; 

A brigandage whereby the bandit-chief 

Carries his captive bride away — away — 

Far into those impregnable Pyrenees, 

Those rugged inaccessible fastnesses. 

The trackless mapless mountains of the heart, 

To there thereafter safely snugly dwell. 



19 



DREAMS 

You dreamt of happiness — from that you hope? 
You scarce believe in what you hear and see, 
Have faith in no man's promise, and distrust 
Even that which you know is proved and true, 
And yet, somehow, you think there's something in 
An idle empty dream ! O Life's a wag, 
Indeed, and people simple to his joking. 
Dreams? It were better not to suffer such 
Suspense, and, sweet, dreams never do come true. 
The power that comes while winding in our sleep 
Awake we cannot summon up nor tell ; 
Though vivid are the fantasies when lightly 
Their sharp and fleet shapes past us, crowned, 

stream. 
Yet open eyes and they are far and dim 
To stir us slightly like the passive tale. 
Sick-sad, poor-gay ; or often raven-omened. 
Stamping the augury of evils dire 
Upon a wan and weary burdened brow. . . . 
A bad bad night — a heavy bitter night. 
But still — false as the echo is — sometimes 
The heavens breathe a morning harmony. 
The fresh air blows from off the hopeful hills. 
And all our being yearns toward Love aijd Dawn, 
Expectant-thrilling as we name the name 
Athwart the flaming rose that crowns the East ; 
The while the blushful nymphs a-cloud restrain 
The sun one laughing moment ere he bursts 
Over the sightless deafened world. 



20 



FOUNDATION 

Our life is work the way we learned it, 
Choked down or shirked, searched dull or 

glad, sought hard ; 
And wealth's the way we earned it, 
Which must give, must retard. 

Ah, youth held days too well remembered, 
Too oft the past's regretted when long gone : 
The year's too soon Septembered, 
How Winter cometh on ! 

Youth was an hour to waste uncaring. 
Delve deeper, finer, longer, where is not ; 
Whose mockery unsparing 
Brings home to us our lot. 

O what a time is now for longing 

When, wished nor willed, yet beaten is the 

track ! 
The past had no belonging 
Such as we want — and lack. 

The world will on to what is coming, 
These years but build up greater, stronger 

need ; 
Regret comes with the summing, 
The cost of being freed. 



II 



SONNETS 



_i 



SARGENT HALL 

Boston Public Library 

There is the whole long tale of discontent, 
The monumental epic of its race, 
In that one soul which on its praying face 

Bears hard signs of the weary way it went, 

Enslaved and toiling in discouragement, 
Yet in the darkest hour of deep disgrace, 
Yea, even when God had hidden for a space 

His Light, through pitfalls seeking the ascent. 

O modern soul ! must you a second time 

Live out this epic of blind ways and strife. 

And tread the worn path which old feet have trod. 

When Precious Blood He gave who hung sublime 
To save and to redeem your inner life. 

And make it one through life and death with God ? 



SI5 



SPRINGFIELD 

How Tom and Holyoke guard us ! there they 
stand — 
Tom gray with years, gray with long ages' 

power, 
But low stoops Holyoke, like a long blue 
shower ; 
While from between both flows the broad and 

bland 
Connecticut, this highway of our land. 
All willow-edged below to laurel-flower 
Above, through fruit and flower-strewn fields 
grassed o'er — 
Other grand scenes I know, but this is grand. 

Springfield once tip-toed to the river bank. 
Leaning and looking where the water stills 

(Her gayety, her knowledge, pride of rank, 
Beauty, I saw) ; sh^ thrilled (I felt the thrills) . 

One moment only spared she for her prank, 
We crowned her on her own, her native hills. 



26 



WESTPORT 

The elms droop over houses white and green ; 
I let my worn self go, my senses play 
To feel the quiet old-time breath and way 

Fluctuant in the summer air serene ; 

And in its wide calm restfulness I lean, 
Putting this modern world of ours away : 
The solemn quaintness of an older day 

With sweet austere release comes in between. 

The years turn back to pardon and restore 
The low and lost, the peaceful past once more, 

And sickly lives and broken hearts make whole ; 
The yearning spirit bridging shore and shore 

Seeks well through vasts of life and death one 
goal— 

The final long deliverance of soul. 



27 



Lx\KE CHAMPLAIN 

O modest maid whose feet creep shyly through 
The valley of the purple-shadowed trance 
Of sleeping green-garbed mountains of romance 

More fleet and silver than your wave-crests do ! 

O sweet nymph of that gown turquoisest blue 
That floods and folds you in your pretty dance, 
Somewhere your lover lingers for his chance; 

Somewhere the mountain-wind is waiting you, 

When you shall come to revel down the rocks 
And ripple with you over widths and bays, 
Then on beyond to downs of quiet grass : 

Sometimes you will not hear but shake your 
locks ; 
Sometimes you weep ; or laugh ; sometimes 
both ways ; 
Mood follows mood— but all your moods surpass. 



MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM 

The haunted wood lay in the spell of dreams 
Under the naive moon's pale changing light, 
And music all the limpid summer night 

Beat gently in the air its rhythmic streams, 

While sprites who flitted in the breathless beams 
Sung fairy-land's low numbers in their flight. 
That night said Helen, if I heard aright. 

In words anent the vexingmost of themes : 

'' Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind.' 
Indeed ! sweet comfort for your stricken eyes, 

O Love, Reason will help your way to find ; 
When such advantage at your service lies, 
The sight of one so shrewd and sure and wise — 

Refuse it ! Are you mad as well as blind ? 



THE BOOK OF LIVING LOVE 

Within this book are tales of wondrous weaves 
Wherein quick lovers of the precious past 
Romance, dance, sing, with hearts that throb too 

fast 
Old ballads of Italian loves and eves. 
Beneath whose moon trip they in tragic play, 
Heart up to heart creep, weep, then pass away ; 
The while from lips that float on mine like leaves 
Afloat in sympathy and poesy 
I gather love as now no man conceives ; 
And when those twinkling stars do light the page, 
And when that golden other slavery 
Binds these held hands I would not disengage — 
Read on, my fair, to find my future where 
A loving answer greets each living prayer. 



• 



80 



YOUR VOICE 

I long to see you smile and hear you speak 

One simple loving word that once I heard, 
Broken in voice and pitiful and weak, 

Which, though it seemed as from some singing 
bird, 
Was yet too sad for utterance quite whole 

And pierced by its ow^n sobbing rhythmus died 
Before tears fell to mark the grievous goal — 

Love's tears of loss you would but could not hide. 
I long to hear those accents low and light, 

The voice which wanders through my heart of 
days 
And yearns upon my soul in depths of night. 

Stealing afar to kiss a thousand ways ; 
Ah, sweet ! the breath of music in your tone 

When you are calling heartwards — O mine own ! 



31 



PARALLELS 



PARALLELS 

These verses which you bring are new, you say ; 

Ah no, they're not ; they have another name : 
To-morrow's dressed not quite like Yesterday 

But otherwise is very much the same : 

For surely they come down from older times ; 

They have been done — and overdone — before : 
Who does not know the sweet recurrent rhymes ? 

Who has not heard their music once or more ? 

Yes, Sweet-Sweet, all your tender themes are 

old — 

Were old, that is when first their dreams were 

sung — 

They are the same fond things that have been told 

To Beauty's laughing lips since Love was young. 

What matter? Is my interest, then, less 

Because remembered music strikes my ear? 

Ah no, I love the stroke of each caress 
So much the more because already dear. 



35 



i 



ON A FINE DAY 

Come, little friend, 

Let us wander far, 

Out of sight and out of sound 

Both temple and bazaar ; 

Where may not be 
Aught but sun and shine. 
Casting shade on hade and glade, 
All fragrant of the pine : 

Song shall it wreathe 
High and low my trees, 
Over swale and over vale. 
And in and out the breeze : 

Peace shall be ours, 
Joy not known before. 
Till the day shall fade away 
And send us back once more. 



i 



36 



ON THAT DAY 

O Love it was who touched the strings, 
From the very heart of things 
Drawing one undying chord, 
Our reward, 

That day. 

We knew not Love was in our view, 
Nor knew Love when Love withdrew, 
Winging soft off as a bird. 
With no word V 

To say. 

But now we know that he was here. 
For he left a smile, a tear, 
To be grown as chance occurred, 
Our reward, 

That day. 

What life shall be is ours to say. 
Longer when Love may not stay 
Wings he soft off as a bird, 
With no word 

To say. 



37 



TRIOLETS 
I 

Far on an island in the sea 

Where sleep-soft scented winds are blowing, 
We live and love alone — just we, 
Far on an island in the sea — 
And none may hear, and none may see, 

And none may know what we are knowing. 
Far on an island in the sea. 

Where sleep-soft scented winds are blowing. 

II 

Sovereign star and mistress mine, 

Queen, woman, rose-flower and my own! 

But praise is poor ; I am not digne. 

Sovereign star and mistress mine. 

Aught more to say than I am thine. 
All wholly only thine alone, 

Sovereign star and mistress mine. 

Queen, woman, rose-flower and my own. 



38 



IN THE DIMNESS 

Over and over the word, just the w^ord and its 

answer, 
Told in the bountiful silence and dimness, and 

flaming 
Quick in renewals as fire-fleet feet of the dancer : 
Only the word, just the word ; and the music of 

naming 
Names that are dear, and the joy of a love that is 

dearer 
Flying as song to the heart, to the heart of each 

hearer. 

SWEETHEART 

Little all in all to me, 
I have called you dearest, best. 
What name nearer can there be 
When I hold you to my breast — 
Sweetheart ? 

I will kiss you when I say it, 
You will kiss me v^hen you know. 
Love comes keenest when I lay it 
On the living lips — just so. 
Sweetheart. 



39 



WHILE LOVE IS HERE 

So you love me, child ? 

Don't 

You know my 

Heart's a wild? 

Won't 

The loneliness oppress you, child ? 

Why then silent, dear? 

O 

'Tis sweet I 

Know 

While Love is here. 

And 

The soft sigh 

Means no fear, 

And 

The bright eye 

Holds no tear, 

No, 

Nor loneliness oppress you, dear? 

O 

'Tis sweet I 

Know 

While Love is here. 



40 



SERENADE 

Soft the notes of trembling lyre, 
Softer Love now shakes out higher 
Softest words that burn as fire — 
Love-words, O my Heart's Desire. 

Sweet and fleet songs low and light ; 
Sweeter, fleeter — summer night ; 
Sweetest, fleetest in their flight — 
Kisses, O my Heart's Delight. 

Golden is the glint and flare 
Old and deep within thine hair, 
Twine me till I nestle where 

Heart hears Heart, my Heart's own Fair. 

O I love thee as thou art ! 
And I dream we shall not part 
But shall sleep — when shadows dart — 
Heart to Heart and Heart to Heart. 



41 



SONG 

O I love thee, love thee, darling, 
When the moon arises, dreaming. 

Through the night above me, darling. 
And the stars are bright and gleaming, 
And the world is faint and seeming, 

O I love thee, love thee, darling. 

O I love thee, love thee, darling. 
And my love is yearning, longing. 

For thy face above me, darling, 
For thy lips, my sw^eet belonging, 
For the words that come a-thronging, 

O I love thee, love thee, darling. 

A TOAST 

Here's to the one each loves the best 
When songs and sighs are through, 

That eager wishes in each breast 
May all come true ; 

And for the rest that there be zest 
Whatever that we do. 



42 



THE LAKE 
Day 

O the waves glisten and gleam, 

And bathe the sun in their bosoms ; 

And the lily-folk seem to laugh at the beam 
Which the sun hands down toward their 
blossoms. 

Night 

The trees hang over the shore, 

And wave over there in the dimness ; 

And the reeds bend o'er to whisper the lore 
Of their kith and their kin and their sadness. 



43 



. /3HffiffiBBE' 



SONG OF THE LAKE 

On the margins of the lake 

The waters play a rhythmic song, 
Murmuring ceaselessly along 
The sands that fall as sounding keys, 
Loud or low as blows the breeze ; 
When the light waves roll and break, 
Hear the songs their movements make ! 

Sunny shimmers skim the lake, 

Where insects hum and dragon-flies 
Dart in gauzy exercise. 
And, silver motes within the beam. 
Countless millions swish and gleam. 

Tumbling, snow-like, flake on flake. 

Songs to sing about the lake. 

Late the sun is on the lake : 
The lilies take their daytime nap 
Fanned asleep by pads that flap ; 
And frogs the drow^sy watches keep, 
Dropping All's Wells bass and deep, 

While the reeds above them quake : 

Hear the chorus of the lake ! 



44 



MOONLIGHT 

Soft are the hands that have come to dwell on my 

face — like two dreams — 
Soft and as light and as white as the moonlight 

that swooningly soothing 
Caresses the earth with its magical light, as it 

streams 
On the unstirred grass of the garden with 

rhythmical smoothing; 
And they ceaselessly pass and repass with no 

sound nor word spoken, 
Like twin ghosts pale and fair that beckon me on 

as they creep, 
As they peacefully gracefully float in the silence 

unbroken. 
Gracefully follow and float — till I drowse .... 

till I drowse .... till I sleep. 



15 



_':ifnrni# 



LONGING 

So late ! So late ! and you so far 
The music dear of yonder star 
Dies where you are : 

Ah, once agone the moon poured clear 
Dripping white light on night's blue sphere, 
And you were here ; 

You were here, dear, I held you tight 
Against this bosom through the night, 
I held you tight. 

Too soon the moon the sky has flown — 
I cannot bear to be alone. 
O come, my own ! 



46 



MELANCHOLY 

The soft rain falls about the town 
In mists that sob and thrill and creep ; 
And on the trees the leaves hang down 
Like long-lashed lids on eyes that weep : 

Beyond, the rows of street-lamps blink 
With halos where they dimly loom, 
Whereunder draggled shadows shrink. 
Then disappear within the gloom. 

And as the drizzling mists of night 
Fall drearily in endless rain, 
The melancholy put to flight 
Returns again with deeper pain. 

Returns again in deep chagrin, 
A musing mist of bitter smart. 
Which will not lift, but settles in 
Sorrow and sadness of the heart. 



47 



SEPARATION 

Over the sad sea the stillness, 
Over the land-rims the night ; 

Deep in mine heart here mine illness ; 
Only to see thee — 
Would that I might ! 

Day-long and night-long I hunger 
Only for one, one delight, 

You as I knevv^ you w^hen younger : 
O but to see thee — 
Would that I might ! 



48 



LOVE'S YESTERDAY 

O love, my love, 

So long it seems 
Since we pledged lip to lip that w^ord 
Which you or I had hardly heard 

When there came dreams. 

Dreams of an hour — 

So long it seems — 
Your heart met mine in one great rush 
And your fair face was all aflush 

From bolder dreams. 

Love-dreams ! Life-Dreams ! 

So long it seems — 
O for long life of loving you ! 
But life has more than love to do, 

Life knows no dreams. 



49 



RENDERINGS 



JULES LAFORGUE 

The Provengal Moon 

Ah, the bonny bold full Moon, 
Full of fortune, big with boon ! . . . 

Distant trumpets sound " Lights Out" ; 
One lone passer walks without ; 

Spinet-music over there ; 

And a cat runs through the square : 

Man and land in sleep repose. 
Now the player also goes, 

Softly shutting her window down. 
Ah me ! how late is it grown ? . . . 

Quiet Moon, what banishment — 
Always in the firmament ! 

Moon, O dilettant white Moon, 
Wandering with silver shoon 

To Missouri ; here and there ; 
To the gates of Paris ; where 

Norway's fiords loom indigo ; 
Poles and seas : we little know. 

Happy Moon ! for thou wilt see 
All the glittering bravery 



53 



In possession of the stars 

On their way to Scotland's scaurs. 

(What a snare it all would be, 
If North froze thee, hearing me !) 

Moon, abandoned vagabond. 
Peace-disturber, passion-fond ! 

Night so opulent that I, 
Province-smitten, nearly die ! 

But the old Moon will not hear — 
She has cotton in each ear ! 



S4 






SAPPHO 
Cruelty for Kindness 

You have hurt me worse than the wound of 

knowing 
Trust betrayed and mankind most false, in 

showing 
Kindness wasted I have been long bestowing — 
How could you do it ? 

Only you could hurt me and be unshaken, 
You of all I loved the best, who have taken 
All I had — you leave me for life forsaken, 
How could you do it? 



58 



JOVIUS SECUNDUS 

Kisses 

Let there rain upon us kisses, 
Hundreds, thousands of these blisses, 
Thousands falling on thy face — 
Thousands none can e'er replace — 
Swifter than the wind of sea, 
More than stars in heaven be. 
While thy purple eyes are gleaming, 
While thy lips are on me dreaming. 
Till the kisses, overflowing. 
Quench the love so warmly glowing. 
Kiss, O kiss me, ecstasy ! 



4 



56 



CATULLUS 

Crux Amoris 

I give you my all, my inmost treasure-store, 

My hungry hateful love once more, once more ; 

I love you as only hate can love — blank blind 

Unreasoning distemper of the mind ; 

I hate you as only passionate love can hate — 

Malevolently, lovingly and late : 

I hate you and I love, — I know not why ; 

I only know how love can crucify. 



57 



MELEAGER 
To A Song-Maiden 

From your young throat 
There falls a strain 
Like silver rain — 

From your young throat : 

No other note 

But Pan's so sweet, 
And none so fleet — 

No other note. 

Where shall I turn 

My breath to call ? 
How not to yearn ? 

From music's fall, 
Your grace — or all, 
I burn, I burn. 



58 



MELEAGER 

The Garland of Roses 

Thou hast a wreath around thy head 
Of roses sweet and red : 
Above thy delicate brow they lie 
Too soon to droop and die, 

Green leaves to wither, blooms to fail, 

And loveliness to go : 

I would it were not so ! 

But though the blooms fall cold and pale, 

And die upon the brow beneath. 
They live within the tomb ; 
For thou art of the wreath a wreath, 
And of the roses bloom. 



59 



FOLK-MADE 
A GASCON Vocero 

My child ! My dear ! 
O! 
You will be lonely here 
In the cemetery 
The whole night long : 

And I 
Shall choke with many a tear, 
And the lone house bury 

My cry — 
The whole night long : 
O! 

My child ! My dear ! 



1 



60 



STEPHANE MALLARME 

Sigh 

My soul up to thy face, where dream, cahn child, 

The freckles of an autumn windy- wild. 

Up to thy heavenly changeful angel eyes 

Lifts, as in moody gardens might uprise 

A white fond fountain with an upward sigh ! 

— To blue sky, pale and pure October sky, 

Reflecting languors long in its great deep. 

While leaves in tawny gasps — the pool asleep — 

Are coldly driven of the wind aside. 

Just where the the yellow sun's last ray has died. 



61 



kHl7 89 



APR 19 1904 



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